latest user's comments

Basically, it is relevant because whilst these tonal elements were set up a long time ago, they were never paid off nor were they resolved in a direct manner. It's just a vague "The good guys won and now everything is great and people will stop killing each-other" and they move on. So much for grudges, eh? Apparently there was literally nothing stopping these nations from stopping fighting with one-another besides... nobody had punched a god in the face yet.

> Chunnin Exams

The exams weren't to deter war, the joint exams between the participating nations were to deter war, and you could easily argue that the reason the first few parts of the exam weren't spectator sports is because... they would make for very poor spectator sports. No point spectating a classroom for an hour, very hard to spectate an enormous forest, and then impromptu preliminary fights break out because there are too many contestants. The actual meat of the chunnin exams, the spectator part, is where all of the weaklings have been shaved away. Ultimately the end is still having rich people betting on deathmatches between kids for the sake of their own personal gains, and the theme of using those cards to boil down contestants into easy-to-digest spectator information shows up repeatedly, not just being used by glasses-guy but also being used by the daimyo. A useful tool to give info to the audience but also to demonstrate how the daimyo not only know very little about these contestants, but that all they care about is their raw statistics.

> Finale

Not many people can put forwards an argument as well as me. Not bragging, just objective fact. It is tricky to nail down exactly what it is that isn't working in a narrative, and what it is that needs to be streamlined in order to work better, and it is only through hard work and experience that you learn to see these things in the detail that I do. (Being a high-functioning sociopath helps and I was one before Sherlock suddenly made it seem cool to people that have no idea how viciously uncool it actually is.)

Half-gloating aside, I get your resentment of the treatment Naruto gets. It is very tempting to protect something you care about, but it is very freeing to let that resentment go and look at what you're protecting with fresh eyes. You get a better understanding of what it is you're arguing for, and why you still think it is worth arguing about. Notice that I spend half of my argument praising Naruto and my complaints are less about what it did wrong, and more about how it could have been better. I am not focussing on the negatives, but on how big positives were missed out on, because I've pawed over the series several times to get a handle on why I still care so much for the world of Naruto, and also why the story within that world fell apart so badly.

You think you have it bad? My first shounen was Bleach. BLEACH! In retrospect that series stopped being good after the first 20 episodes or so once hollows and real human drama stopped being the focus of the story. I took a lot of shit as a kid for liking Bleach, but looking back now, knowing what I do, I can appreciate the parts I like, even without outright hating everything about it, and appreciating the good through the bad.

^ I still think Charlotte Chuhlhourne is one of the most ridiculously ingenious expendable henchmen in anime. I always smile when seeing that fight. It's... it's something else, man.

So yeah, I get your feelings on the matter, but don't mistake my criticisms for hatred. If I hate something then I'll let you know. I am critical of Naruto not because I dislike it, but because it began as so much more than it became, and what would otherwise be one of my favourite arcs in anime got broken by obviously poor choices that a good editor would have pointed out straight away. I feel the same way about the Star Wars prequels. Some writers need their editors.

Gaara is a tirtiary character. He occasionally bumps up to secondary during the Chuunin exams but beyond that he is a background character. His change in personality didn't need to be demonstrated before the Kazekage rescue arc though, and it may well have been more impactful to hear about how he has changed and how he is viewed by the local populace before meeting him. Gaara showing up only told Lee and the audience that Gaara had changed, but it is to Naruto that this information is directly relevant, and he does not learn it during the arc. It is a reveal that could have happened later, and could very well have been more powerful without an early viewing, especially one in an arc that it is not directly related to.

Lee and Gaara have a connection in the sense that they fought with one-another, but they do not share dialogue, they do not share any meaningful conversation or insight with one-another, and they do not go one to become anything more than they were before the fight began. You could count on your hand the number of times Lee speaks to Gaara outside of the Chuunin exam arc and still have enough fingers to scratch your bum. They are less connected than Naruto was to Zabuza, whereas Ten Ten is a long time partner to Lee, someone who was probably very hurt to see his predicament so the audience can learn of Lee's time recovering from the outside perspective. The joy of being able to fight beside him again when there was a good chance she would never get to. That is a lot more to work with from a narrative sense.

Shikamaru fought Temari and they gained a mutual respect for one-another, but again that is a very small connection compared to Ino. What is more, you could do interesting things with her body-control abilities. Have Tayuya block with one of her dolls so Ino is inside the doll, fighting Tayuya for control over it. Doll has no eyes to see with, only ears too, all the while her body is vulnerable. A lot you could do with that setup both mechanically and emotionally.

I'll say there are connections but they are insignificant compared to the connections held to the characters that are actually relevant to the conflict. However I should point out that I think you picked up on 2 words in my second comment there where I said 'no connections' but the full line was about their lack of camaraderie, which ultimately even if they are allies, the Sand Ninja that show up don't have, because allies =/= comrades. I said other characters had connections, but only once did I bring up connections in regards to the Sand nin, and in a context that I think you misinterpreted. Still my fault for using the words though.

> Kimimaro

What Gaara has in defence Lee and Ten Ten have in mobility. Remember, Gaara's defence basically amounted to thin sand walls and a weird sand baby thing. There are no attacks Kimimaro let out that Lee and Ten Ten couldn't dodge. What is more, Ten Ten has 100,000 weapons up her very short sleeves so you could ration that a shield might be in there somewhere that could block Kimimaro's finger-bullets, the only really fast attack he had.

Again, they don't need to win, they need to survive.

> Cherrypicking

I'll give you Haku. He and Zabuza both took their part in the story as being expendable tools/weapons to heart, and I'll even give you Kimimaro. Kisame... I did not remember that, it was a small detail but yeah, I'll give you that too (however, all of those characters originated pre-shippuden so... significant regarding the change in tone that came during shippuden). However, the reason this is important is that it is never properly addressed. Naruto never solves this problem. He kills a god and fights a sassy, lost emo but how the hell does this world that is so cut-throat just resolve itself offscreen? I mean... the Kages end up pretty friendly to one-another... how the fuck did that happen? How did peace not come sooner? How is this world justifiably cut-throat? (Continued...)

There is a difference between what a critic wants out of a story, and what is actually better for the story itself. Whilst criticism can never be unbiased it can be objective and that is what proper analysis is, it is objective. It is objectively better for the story to have important secondary characters that have connections, synergy, and history to show up instead of irrelevant tertiary characters. The Sand Ninja have no place in that arc. They are not personally affected by anything that transpires in the arc and they have poor synergy with the characters they show up to help. All three of them essentially win the fights for the characters that they show up to protect.

Having members of the Konoha 12 show up instead is not only relevant because they have direct connections to Sasuke, thus to the main plot of the arc, but also with the people they are going to aid. You can then have them continue the fights together, demonstrating for the audience their synergy instead of just ending the fights when new guys show up.

You posit that Kimimaro would slaughter Lee and Ten Ten but when you look at the actual fight Gaara doesn't have any great advantage over Kimimaro, no more than Ten Ten would arguably have. We never canonically get to see her do anything of worth therefore there is a lot of value in seeing her fighting alongside Lee, two of the best taijutsu users in the Konoha 12 going up against a man whose whole body is a weapon. There is a lot you can do with that. If it was Sakura going to join Lee then yes, Kimimaro would probably have won, but there is nothing specific to Gaara that makes him a strong counter to Kimimaro, especially given how the fight ends early with Kimimaro's death by illness, which was a pretty cool twist and demonstrated his clear superiority to Gaara and Lee. The team-up doesn't need to win in that situation, they just need to work together and not loose.

Nothing personal comes from these characters showing up out of the blue. They have no camaraderie with one-another, no connections. It would be like if during the fight with Zabuza the hokage showed up instead of the villagers. You would arguably get the same result of scaring off the thugs but it is less thematically powerful and less relevant to the plot at hand.

And as for the 'dispassionate ninja world' thing, you're cherrypicking my words, because the key words were at the other end of the sentence, referencing the treatment of ninja's lives as expendable. That's not a thing with Nagato, Sasori, Tsunade, Orochimaro, Pein, Kisame, Hashirama, or Madara. They are all victims of misfortune brought about by war but that isn't unique to the Naruto universe. The theme of Ninja being used as tools only comes up occasionally in reference to Kakashi, his father, or more openly to Itachi, who devoted himself so thoroughly to his role as a tool that he gladly bore the mark of a traitor for it, and did horrible things, despite being a good person at heart. Those other people you mentioned suffered loss and trauma, or became cold and cruel due to warfare, but none of their character arcs are explicitly related to them being tools, which is something stated powerfully by Kakashi at the beginning of the series, then the first really big arc the show gets into is driven by how the rich people bet on children fighting deathmatches with one-another, in hopes to get an idea on the new stock coming through. It wasn't a big focus, but it was there in the background.

I get that you feel strongly for the show, but you seem to not be very experienced with analysis, nor with writing in general. I've heard a lot of arguments like yours in the past and they have exclusively come from positions of inexperience on the matter (though I'm happy to be disproved there). Writing is a lot more technical than outsiders give it credit for.

I appreciate your approach to this and your response so sorry if I was abrasive with my first reply.

I understand what you are saying in the first paragraph, but it seems to stem from thinking Gaara is a tertiary character. I cannot make arguments for his brother and sister, but Gaara himself is pretty important to the story. Also, I honestly thought that the reason that Gaara, Temari, And Kankuro showed up was because it was symbolizing that the Leaf and Sand were allies again. Showing that Gaara somewhat got over his past and was trying to make himself a better person. A changed that definitly needed to be shown taking place before the Kazekage Rescue Arc.

One of the reasons I called your knowledge of Naruto dubious is because of your claim that the team from Sand has no connection to the people they rescued. Again I cannot make an argument for Kiba and Kankuro, but Lee and Gaara do have a connection. If you remember Gaara was the reason Lee almost had to quit being a ninja. With Shikamaru and Temari they fought in the Chunnin Exams. If I remember correctly Temari went into that fight thinking he was pathetic and lazy but came out respecting him somewhat because she should have actually lost. Those characters do have connections man, you're just ignoring them. It isn't like they had no idea who each other were.

I said Kimimaro would slaughter Lee and Ten Ten because he definitely would. Kimimaro was complete and utter bullshit in a good way, but still utter bullshit. You're completely right Gaara didn't have a great advantage over Kimimaro, but what he had was defence. A hell of a better defence than Ten Ten would ever have had at that point. At the end of the fight Kimimaro could have killed Gaara and Lee if it wasn't for illness, and you're telling me Ten Ten and Lee would have stood an equal chance...

Sorry about my cherry picking, still getting used to debating, but even without it you're still wrong you state.

_ "Whereas the setup pre-shippuden is for a dispassionate Ninja world that treats humans as tools and their lives as expendable, that only ever plays into the story by way of Itachi."_

There is also Haku. While Haku's role was no where near as big as Itachi's he set Naruto on that path of protecting your friends and all that shonen stuff. Hell if you squint Kimimaro fits the mould because of his similarities with Haku. Kisame himself killed his other teammates during a mission because the intel was more important than their lives, so yes he does count as an example. I don't even see the point in bringing that up. Even without the 'ninja tool' angle there are still shit loads of problems with the 'war driven world' of Naruto.

While you are right, in that there was betting when it came to the Chunnin Exam Finals, there was only one moment when it was shown in a bad light. It was when some random thugs decided it would a good idea to theaten Gaara. If the entire Chunnin Exams was driven for the sake of rich people betting on fights then it would have been set up differently right? Because as it is if it was such a driving force behind it then there wouldn't have been two parts that were completely cut off from people viewing it besides Jounin instructors. Also I'm not sure if you remember but the main point to the Chunnin Exams is a deterrent for war.

I gotta say though I've run into many people like you as well, although they didn't put their arguments forward that well, and it didn't take them long to start calling me a fanboy. I'm just tired for all of the hate on Naruto I guess. People calling Kishimoto a hack writer and calling plot twists ass-pulls because they don't like to think about how things can fit together. Again sorry if my first comment was abrasive.

Basically, it is relevant because whilst these tonal elements were set up a long time ago, they were never paid off nor were they resolved in a direct manner. It's just a vague "The good guys won and now everything is great and people will stop killing each-other" and they move on. So much for grudges, eh? Apparently there was literally nothing stopping these nations from stopping fighting with one-another besides... nobody had punched a god in the face yet.

> Chunnin Exams

The exams weren't to deter war, the joint exams between the participating nations were to deter war, and you could easily argue that the reason the first few parts of the exam weren't spectator sports is because... they would make for very poor spectator sports. No point spectating a classroom for an hour, very hard to spectate an enormous forest, and then impromptu preliminary fights break out because there are too many contestants. The actual meat of the chunnin exams, the spectator part, is where all of the weaklings have been shaved away. Ultimately the end is still having rich people betting on deathmatches between kids for the sake of their own personal gains, and the theme of using those cards to boil down contestants into easy-to-digest spectator information shows up repeatedly, not just being used by glasses-guy but also being used by the daimyo. A useful tool to give info to the audience but also to demonstrate how the daimyo not only know very little about these contestants, but that all they care about is their raw statistics.

> Finale

Not many people can put forwards an argument as well as me. Not bragging, just objective fact. It is tricky to nail down exactly what it is that isn't working in a narrative, and what it is that needs to be streamlined in order to work better, and it is only through hard work and experience that you learn to see these things in the detail that I do. (Being a high-functioning sociopath helps and I was one before Sherlock suddenly made it seem cool to people that have no idea how viciously uncool it actually is.)

Half-gloating aside, I get your resentment of the treatment Naruto gets. It is very tempting to protect something you care about, but it is very freeing to let that resentment go and look at what you're protecting with fresh eyes. You get a better understanding of what it is you're arguing for, and why you still think it is worth arguing about. Notice that I spend half of my argument praising Naruto and my complaints are less about what it did wrong, and more about how it could have been better. I am not focussing on the negatives, but on how big positives were missed out on, because I've pawed over the series several times to get a handle on why I still care so much for the world of Naruto, and also why the story within that world fell apart so badly.

You think you have it bad? My first shounen was Bleach. BLEACH! In retrospect that series stopped being good after the first 20 episodes or so once hollows and real human drama stopped being the focus of the story. I took a lot of shit as a kid for liking Bleach, but looking back now, knowing what I do, I can appreciate the parts I like, even without outright hating everything about it, and appreciating the good through the bad.

^ I still think Charlotte Chuhlhourne is one of the most ridiculously ingenious expendable henchmen in anime. I always smile when seeing that fight. It's... it's something else, man.

So yeah, I get your feelings on the matter, but don't mistake my criticisms for hatred. If I hate something then I'll let you know. I am critical of Naruto not because I dislike it, but because it began as so much more than it became, and what would otherwise be one of my favourite arcs in anime got broken by obviously poor choices that a good editor would have pointed out straight away. I feel the same way about the Star Wars prequels. Some writers need their editors.

Gaara is a tirtiary character. He occasionally bumps up to secondary during the Chuunin exams but beyond that he is a background character. His change in personality didn't need to be demonstrated before the Kazekage rescue arc though, and it may well have been more impactful to hear about how he has changed and how he is viewed by the local populace before meeting him. Gaara showing up only told Lee and the audience that Gaara had changed, but it is to Naruto that this information is directly relevant, and he does not learn it during the arc. It is a reveal that could have happened later, and could very well have been more powerful without an early viewing, especially one in an arc that it is not directly related to.

Lee and Gaara have a connection in the sense that they fought with one-another, but they do not share dialogue, they do not share any meaningful conversation or insight with one-another, and they do not go one to become anything more than they were before the fight began. You could count on your hand the number of times Lee speaks to Gaara outside of the Chuunin exam arc and still have enough fingers to scratch your bum. They are less connected than Naruto was to Zabuza, whereas Ten Ten is a long time partner to Lee, someone who was probably very hurt to see his predicament so the audience can learn of Lee's time recovering from the outside perspective. The joy of being able to fight beside him again when there was a good chance she would never get to. That is a lot more to work with from a narrative sense.

Shikamaru fought Temari and they gained a mutual respect for one-another, but again that is a very small connection compared to Ino. What is more, you could do interesting things with her body-control abilities. Have Tayuya block with one of her dolls so Ino is inside the doll, fighting Tayuya for control over it. Doll has no eyes to see with, only ears too, all the while her body is vulnerable. A lot you could do with that setup both mechanically and emotionally.

I'll say there are connections but they are insignificant compared to the connections held to the characters that are actually relevant to the conflict. However I should point out that I think you picked up on 2 words in my second comment there where I said 'no connections' but the full line was about their lack of camaraderie, which ultimately even if they are allies, the Sand Ninja that show up don't have, because allies =/= comrades. I said other characters had connections, but only once did I bring up connections in regards to the Sand nin, and in a context that I think you misinterpreted. Still my fault for using the words though.

> Kimimaro

What Gaara has in defence Lee and Ten Ten have in mobility. Remember, Gaara's defence basically amounted to thin sand walls and a weird sand baby thing. There are no attacks Kimimaro let out that Lee and Ten Ten couldn't dodge. What is more, Ten Ten has 100,000 weapons up her very short sleeves so you could ration that a shield might be in there somewhere that could block Kimimaro's finger-bullets, the only really fast attack he had.

Again, they don't need to win, they need to survive.

> Cherrypicking

I'll give you Haku. He and Zabuza both took their part in the story as being expendable tools/weapons to heart, and I'll even give you Kimimaro. Kisame... I did not remember that, it was a small detail but yeah, I'll give you that too (however, all of those characters originated pre-shippuden so... significant regarding the change in tone that came during shippuden). However, the reason this is important is that it is never properly addressed. Naruto never solves this problem. He kills a god and fights a sassy, lost emo but how the hell does this world that is so cut-throat just resolve itself offscreen? I mean... the Kages end up pretty friendly to one-another... how the fuck did that happen? How did peace not come sooner? How is this world justifiably cut-throat? (Continued...)

Their voice actor has decided to leave the simpsons, and it may or may not mean that the characters are going as well This is going with the whole Edna Krabappel thimg, though they didn't replace her out of respect for the newly deceased voice actor